A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon helping a client break the new story she’s working on. And at one point in our session I pulled out a little outlining hack that this client has now reached out multiple times to thank me for, so today I’m sharing it with you in the hopes you’ll find it as useful.
(Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday…)
Maybe you’ve found yourself in a situation like this…
We had outlined Acts 1 and 2 already, which means we were nearing the end of the afternoon as well as the end of our mental energy stores. But I really wanted her to leave with a complete (if loosely-drafted) outline of her story. No big gaps she’d have to figure out on her own. A solid idea of what should be happening in each part of the story so that she’d be able to keep moving forward on refining the outline.
So we were facing Act 3 and we wanted to get it outlined as quickly and painlessly as possible. That’s where this hack comes in.
Alright, already. What’s the hack?
Very simply, the process goes like this:
- Identify what section of story you’re working on (in our case, Act 3).
- Brain dump everything you know needs to happen in that section. It’s a brainstorm, so don’t censor yourself. Big moments or small, plot beats, character developments, etc. If you have an inkling that it happens in this section, it goes in the brain dump.
- Organize what you have into a logical chronology. Some things must happen before others. Some have a less distinct placement, and for those just use your best judgment or instinct for now.
That’s it!
When you’re done, you’ll be able to see the shape of the section emerging, and you can use what you know about that section (Act 3, in our example) to generate additional ideas and fill in what’s missing.
Why does this hack work?
As with the client I was working with during this session, often writers will have a bunch of ideas about their story just collecting in their heads. Images and scene ideas and moments they know fit in there somewhere.
There are also just plot-logistical things that have to happen — whether that’s in any story, or in your story specifically. So throwing all of these things — the things your intuition has fed you, plus the old standards you can draw on — gives you a good starting point. Once you put it all down on paper, you’ll probably be surprised at how much material you have to work with, when just minutes before you were beating your head against a blank page.
And the process of brainstorming and then organizing takes away much of the pressure of creating story.
Additional tips for using this outlining hack
- You can do this exercise for a whole screenplay, but it’s easier and more manageable if you break the task up into smaller parts. A good method is tackling an act at a time, not just because they’re smaller sections but because each act has a particular story function that can give your brainstorming some helpful direction.
- You can “nest” this method, i.e. use it at a big-picture, 40,000-foot view to hack the story as a whole. Then, use what you now know to narrow in on a smaller section (Act 1, for example), and hack just that section, getting more and more granular with the story.
- You can use pen and paper, notecards, or whatever makes the process feel fun and easy. If you’re looking for a digital option, I like Workflowy because it lets you brainstorm as if in a simple Word doc, but then easily drag and drop your list entries — so much better than cut-and-paste!
This hack might seem overly simple, but it’s a great little trick when you’re feeling stuck because it helps you move forward using what’s already in your head. You probably know more about your story than you think, and even if you don’t? This exercise will help you see what you do know, what still needs to be figured out, and where to focus your energy on coming up with new solutions.